Taking your mobile game to China is tough, but it might just be worth the effort.

Mobile gaming in China was worth $4.4 billion in 2014 — a significant part of an $18.5 billion gaming market — and it’s unsurprising that Western developers want a piece of the action. But taking your game to China isn’t an easy task. Effective localization means more than just translating some text, and developers and publishers also have to deal with an incredibly fragmented Android marketplace, which is split across more than 200 different stores.

Walking around Casual Connect Europe earlier this month, I was intrigued by the growing number of stands devoted to publishing in China and the rest of Asia. Speaking to some of these companies revealed a Chinese market brimming with potential but needing a wildly different approach to find success.

First-time gamers

It seems somewhat contrived to discuss an entire nation of gamers as one, but China’s recent history is unique compared to other major markets.

The Chinese government’s thirteen-year ban on foreign consoles just recently ended, and buying a personal computer is still prohibitively expensive for many Chinese families. There is a massive PC gaming market in China that centers mainly around gaming cafes, but for a lot of people, their first ever experience of gaming is on their smartphones.

“In China, a lot of people — their first electronic hardware is their mobile phone,” said Johnny Lo, account executive at Japanese Internet advertising company Septini. “They can’t afford a console, and they may not have been able to afford a TV back in the old days. PC was too expensive for them. So now the country is more developed — people are making more money — [and] the smartphone is their first gaming item.”

This new exposure to gaming, coupled with relatively short commutes to work in urban areas, results in gamers that play in a very different way to the West. And translating your game to that market is about more than just language.

“Localization is key,” said Lo. “Not just text localization but the culture. The graphics, the whole game scheme has to be adjusted.”

Omri Halamish of Ironsource told me a similar story. The digital distribution company — which raised $85 million in a recent funding round — opened a Beijing office six months ago. While Ironsource’s business there is more about helping Chinese developers succeed in the West, Halamish helped explain the importance of smart localization for the Chinese market.

“Most people think when I tell them they need to localize their game: ‘OK, I need to translate it.’ Not at all,” he said.

“You need to rewrite the story sometimes. You need to change the game flow [to] shorter sessions. Also, in-app purchases and monetization [need to be] much more aggressive and noisy. You have so much noise that you need to get over there.”

Halamish shared an interesting analogy for badly localized Western games: “I heard someone say it’s like watching a Bruce Lee film with subtitles that are very bad,” he said. “This is how your game is going to play.”

“That’s kind of the challenge. What Western game developers need to understand is that they need to rewire their game if they go to China. That’s the bottom line.”

A fragmented marketplace

Even if you have a game that suits the Chinese market, getting it published is tricky. Less so on iOS — where Apple controls most of the distribution for its phones and tablets — but with no single, unified store for the more dominant Android devices (accounting for 78.5 percent of the smartphone market), it’s a minefield, and you’ll likely need some help.

SkyMobi is one company helping Western developers publish in the Chinese market. It’s already got six games on the Chinese Android marketplaces — including Pele: King of Football and Beach Buggy Racing — and has another two currently undergoing localization.

It’s only taking around two games each month because localization isn’t easy, and it wants to hand-pick games it believes can actually succeed.

“To publish in China you need to work with tens if not hundreds of different channels,” explained William Heathershaw, the head of international marketing at SkyMobi. “At the end of the day a publisher only has so many resources, so we’re going to focus on the top maybe 50 channels, which will really give you access to 95-plus percent of the market.”

And each of those channels needs a unique copy of the game. “It’s not as simple as it is in the West,” said Heathershaw. “You have to create a clone copy of your game for each of the different app stores. Some of the larger app stores might [also] have certain requirements that you have to tweak for the game. It does require a lot of time on the publishing side for that to happen.”

Above: SkyMobi’s Pele: King of Football

Image Credit: SkyMobi

SkyMobi takes the source code directly from the developer and handles everything from there, including sending payments.

“As we’re a NASDAQ-listed company, we have the ability to give our developers money more quickly than other local Chinese publishers are,” said Heathershaw. “Some developers [elsewhere] have to wait maybe three months to collect what they made.”

But is it worth the effort?

“We’ve had a nice success with Beach Buggy Racing,” said Heathershaw. “In the first month, it’s done a few million downloads in just one market — China. It’s pretty impressive to think that a game can have a decent percentage of its overall downloads from one market.”

In the West, developers give 30 percent of their revenue to the platform holders — Apple and Google. In China, things are a lot more complicated. Payments are generally handled by a third party, as people don’t tend to have credit cards.

So you end up in a situation where you’re giving 30 percent to the platform holder and 30 percent to the payment provider. That leaves 40 percent of your total revenue, which you then need to split with your publisher.

“It always comes down to, ‘Do you want access to the Chinese market or not?’” said Heathershaw. “If you do, that’s just how it goes.”

Continue Reading ...]]>0Looking East: The Western advance on China’s burgeoning mobile gaming market15 essential games for your new iPhonehttp://venturebeat.com/2014/12/25/15-essential-games-for-your-new-iphone/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/12/25/15-essential-games-for-your-new-iphone/#commentsThu, 25 Dec 2014 13:15:20 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1629503Feature:If you got a fancy new iPhone for the holidays and aren't sure what to play on it, here are some must-have titles to get you started.
]]>FEATURE:

Now that you’re done completely losing your mind in excitement over the shiny new iPhone someone gave you for the holidays, you’re probably wondering which games to download first so that you’ll have something to do after dinner once everyone else either passes out or watches football.

Well, we’re always happy to help with your festive conundrum, so here are 15 games you can get from the App Store right now to get your mobile-gaming career started right.

And while many of the games on this list are “free,” most of these do offer in-app purchases for gear, cosmetic items, and more.

The Room is one of the best-looking mobile games you’ll ever see. It’s a puzzler that tasks you with unlocking a series of boxes. You do this by examining them from every angle to find keys, open secret panels, and generally just wiggle stuff around with incredibly responsive touch controls.

It also has a strange metaplot straight out of the world of weird-fiction author H.P. Lovecraft. Apparently, the puzzle boxes exist in a bizarre unworld that humanity was never meant to encounter or something. But the main part is that these puzzles are really good.

This one isn’t a game so much as an interactive radio play where you choose your path through a 1960s-style espionage story. Every once in a while, the app gives you a choice as to how to proceed. Do you make like Daniel Craig’s James Bond and knock that guard out? Or do you choose stealth and sneak by like boring old Roger Moore’s James Bond? When you’re done, you get to see a profile of sorts to tell you what kind of superspy you’d make.

People looking for a deep gameplay experience in which their choices matter and affect future events should look elsewhere to meet those needs, but Cygnus still provides a fun story and just enough interactivity to earn it a spot on this list.

Here’s the easiest sell on the list — Jetpack Joyride is probably the best supported free game in the App Store. It’s an endless runner from the creators of Fruit Ninja, and its simple, one-touch controls and steady supply of missions give you plenty to do. The steady supply of updates with new vehicles and playstyles will make sure you’re still playing it months from now.

It’s so fun that you won’t even care that it isn’t superrelevant anymore, what with all of the giant robots and water scooters and stuff.

This beautiful puzzle adventure takes its inspiration from origami and pop-up books. And if its looks aren’t impressive enough, here’s a fun fact: If you were so inclined, you could make everything in this game yourself with real paper. I’m not sure if you’d want to do that, but it’s nice to know the option exists.

The game itself is low-key and relaxing with pretty, calm music to go along with the sedate visuals. Pop in some headphones, and it’ll provide some relief if you need a little break from all that family time.

We recently interviewed the director of this interactive zombie film with takes place across three chapters. It’s downright terrifying in parts, and it’ll have you second-guessing every choice you make as you wind your way across the undead-filled countryside in search of your similarly besieged girlfriend.

Highlights include an especially terrifying bike ride and a creepy little girl you know you shouldn’t follow but probably will.

More information:

More information:

]]>015 essential games for your new iPhoneiDreamSky's Monte Singman wants to take Western hits to China (interview)http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/06/idreamskys-monte-singman-wants-to-take-western-hits-to-china-interview/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/06/idreamskys-monte-singman-wants-to-take-western-hits-to-china-interview/#commentsWed, 06 Aug 2014 15:00:43 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1520036iDreamSky is planning an IPO based on its success taking Western mobile games like Fruit Ninja into China.
]]>

SHANGHAI — iDreamSky Technology, a Chinese third-party mobile game publishing platform, is one of those companies cashing in on China’s mobile game market, which is expected to grow 93 percent to $2.9 billion in 2014.

Western game developers want nothing more than to cash in on that market. To date, Shenzhen-based iDreamSky has distributed worldwide blockbuster mobile game hits such as Temple Run, Fruit Ninja, Subway Surfers, Cookie Run, Doodle Jump, Brizzle, and Asphalt. The company has raised $10 million from Redpoint Ventures and Legend Capital. iDreamSky has several hundred employees. Tencent’s THL A19 is the largest shareholder in iDreamSky.

If you succeed in this cross-border transference, the rewards are huge. iDreamSky recently filed for an initial public offering on Nasdaq, with the purpose of raising $115 million. But navigating the market is hard. You may need a guy like Monte Singman, vice president of business development at iDreamSky and a veteran of Shanda Games and Zona Research. I met Singman a long time ago, and he has made it his business to figure out the right developers to know.

We talked to Singman recently about publishing in China at the ChinaJoy game trade show in Shanghai. Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

Above: iDreamSky business development chief Monte Singman

Image Credit: Dean Takahashi

GamesBeat: Can you give us a refresher course on iDreamsky’s history?

Monte Singman: The company was founded in 2009. Before, we were an outsourcing studio for mobile games.

GamesBeat: How quickly did your opportunities for publishing grow up?

Singman: It was Fruit Ninja that changed everything. Of the three founders – Michael, Anthony, and Jeff – Michael and Anthony were engineers. Jeff was a game industry guy from Hong Kong. It was Jeff who went to Australia and brought the game back.

GamesBeat: It was already becoming a hit, right?

Singman: Yeah, it was already a global hit, everywhere else. I believe it was also a hit in China, but no one was receiving any benefit from that. iDreamsky paid for it and became the exclusive publisher. All the benefit from Fruit Ninja came to iDreamsky after that. That’s when iDreamsky became a publisher.

GamesBeat: And that helped draw in more games from elsewhere.

Singman: Right. That background of being an outsourcing studio, and also the fact that the cofounders were programmers, helped the company put together the teams to do proper adaptation for the local market.

GamesBeat: How quickly did China become such a big market? A couple of years ago, did it seem like this was going to happen?

Singman: In 2012, there were less than 50 people at iDreamsky. We always have a year-end dinner, which is usually in February of every year. At the last year-end dinner, this February, there were around 450 people. And the year before there were 100. So the company quadrupled in that one year, and doubled the year before that. We’ll probably go above 1,000 employees by the end of this year.

Above: iDreamSky booth at ChinaJoy

Image Credit: Dean Takahashi

GamesBeat: This year at ChinaJoy is the first year they’ve had this mobile focus. It seems like everyone is starting to realize that this might be the biggest market opportunity. Kevin Chu from Kabam was talking today about how mobile is the first chance for the creation of truly global gaming companies. Before, if you were a console game-maker, you were focused on Japan or the U.S. or western Europe. Now there’s a chance for more global companies. What does that mean to you?

Singman: I’d agree with that statement. We have a sort of unspoken policy, though. Anywhere that takes more than five hours of flight time to reach, we won’t set up our own office there. That comes from Jeff. It’s just hard to manage across that distance.

So we’re not going to set up, say, iDreamsky USA. But we will invest in companies in the U.S. Right now we’re focused on China. We’re stepping out into Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau. Those are low-hanging fruit. After that, maybe Korea and Japan. We’re in the process of setting up publishing units there.

GamesBeat: That seems like a lot to chew on. The competition is severe. What would you say to people who aren’t familiar with the company? How will you differentiate yourselves from the competition?

Singman: Many Chinese publishers don’t pay minimum guarantees. They just want to license a game without paying anything up front. We’re one of the few companies that does pay up front. Also, we’re one of a very few companies that has an army of engineers that can adapt a game to local tastes. We don’t just integrate the payment API or the social SDK. A lot of times we do go in and change art or add content.

With a lot of games, if we didn’t do anything to them, they just wouldn’t work in China. We’re starting to take premium games, in fact, and convert them to IAP on our own. We’ve done that and we’re doing more of that.

Singman: Some of the games we’re talking to are in seven figures as far as minimum guarantees.

GamesBeat: How else would you make your pitch to western companies?

Singman: My pitch usually involves our past success. That past success puts us on top right now in China. Our approach is more holistic. It’s more about relationship-building. Tencent, for example, has a more mechanical approach. They scan the top ranking charts – the downloads, the top grossing, the DAUs – and go after the top 25. They have an army of testers to test everything. If they find something that fits their portfolio, they go after it.

I think you miss a lot of gems if you only scan the market mechanically. Sometimes a potential superstar doesn’t have a track record, but if you’re an industry veteran you can look at it and say, “Hey, this is going to do great.” We react favorably to deals like that and products like that. But I think we’re slowly going to become more like Tencent. We’re going to have a mechanical part of our product selection process. But we’re going to keep that holistic approach, which is more about gut feelings, experience, and relationship-building. Our content providers, we’re usually very close to them.

GamesBeat: Is triple-A content from the west going to be welcomed in China?

Singman: Yes. That’s what we’re looking for. The only trouble is—For example, I’m looking at some western games that make fantastic amounts of money, but certain kinds of content just don’t fit very well in China. They don’t get past the government. No gangsters, no Mafiosi.

Continue Reading ...]]>0iDreamSky's Monte Singman wants to take Western hits to China (interview)Fruit Ninja and other familiar game brands are bubbling up again on the mobile download chartshttp://venturebeat.com/2014/07/22/fruit-ninja-angry-birds-and-other-familiar-brands-are-bubbling-up-again-on-the-mobile-download-charts/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/22/fruit-ninja-angry-birds-and-other-familiar-brands-are-bubbling-up-again-on-the-mobile-download-charts/#commentsTue, 22 Jul 2014 14:00:37 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1511353While breakout mobile hits like 2048 continue to perform well, popular brands are also still finding an audience on iOS and Android.
]]>

While iOS and Android still host a number of unexpected breakout hits, a number of recognizable games and sequels are moving up the charts.

Games like TwoDots, Angry Birds Epic, and Bubble Witch Saga 2 were all in the top-10 most-downloaded games on the iOS App Store in June, according to a report from industry-tracking firm App Annie. Even developer Halfbrick’s Fruit Ninja and Fish Out of Water, two games that dominated mobile charts in years past, are back in the top 10 on iOS. This is evidence that established mobile developers are adapting for the ever-changing mobile landscape, and it reveals that surprising hits like 2048 and Don’t Tap The White Tile won’t necessarily crowd out games from developers like King, Rovio, and others.

Above: The most-downloaded iOS games in June.

Image Credit: App Annie

“TwoDots led the wave of new entrants that swept through the top-10 iOS games by monthly downloads in June,” reads the App Annie report. “Don’t Tap the White Tile and 2048 were the only two apps that stayed in the top 10 from May.”

TwoDots is the sequel to the incredibly popular Dots from developer Betaworks One, and its fans returned for a second round with the game. That brand recognition didn’t just help TwoDots. Rovio’s Angry Birds are back near the top of the charts with the free-to-play Angry Birds Epic action role-playing game on iOS and Android.

Angry Birds Epic debuted on June 12, and it immediately slingshotted into the top-5 games for the combined iOS and Google Play downloads chart worldwide. While Angry Birds games typically do well, some of Rovio’s other recent attempts (like kart racer Angry Birds Go) fizzled out quickly. Epic’s strong first month suggests its success may have a longer tail.

The most surprising return to form for the month of June was definitely Halfbrick and its Fruit Ninja and Fish Out of Water.

“Halfbrick leapt 43 spots and ended June 2014 as the No. 3 iOS game publisher by downloads due to the strong performance in the second half of month,” reads the report. “The Australian game studio sliced the prices for their paid games to free for a limited time, which resulted in substantial growth across their app portfolio. A couple of Halfbrick games rode the free wave all the way into the Top 10 iOS games by monthly downloads the fan­-favorite Fruit
Ninja and Fish Out of Water.”

Fruit Ninja debuted way back in 2010 and Fish Out of Water is from 2013. Now that both games are back near the top of the downloads chart, that should help with their visibility on the App Store. The studio may see a boost in its sales now that the games have better discoverability.

Above: The top-performing developers on the App Store and Google Play in June.

Image Credit: App Annie

Finally, Candy Crush Saga publisher King definitely has that new hit it was looking for. Bubble Witch Saga 2 blew up on both iOS and Android in June. A lot of that success is likely attributable to King’s strategy of downplaying mobile ad spending in favor of television advertisements. The developer is running 30-second spots for Bubble Witch Saga 2 on a number of cable and network channels, and it has Bubble Witch Saga 2 as the No. 6 most downloaded game across both the App Store and Google Play.

The performance of Bubble Witch Saga 2 has King trading up from around $16.50 in June all the way up to $20.60 today. King’s stock price even surpassed $22.50 earlier this month for the first time since its initial public offering.

Gaming on smartphones and tablets is a huge market, but it’s also getting crowded with software. To compete, some developers are turning to publishing.

That’s what Fruit Ninja studio Halfbrick is doing. The company had one of the biggest early hits on iOS and Android with its arcade-style fruit-slicing game, and now it wants to share its expertise with other developers as part of a publishing deal. The company is already teaming up with developer Enfeel to release its match-three puzzler Birzzle Fever on Apple’s and Google’s mobile operating systems. This will enable Halfbrick to continue making money from mobile games without having to spend all of its resources developing the next big thing.

“The mobile market is more competitive by the day, and we are fortunate to be in a position where we can drive continued success for ourselves by investing in high quality original games and marketing in-house,” Halfbrick chief marketing officer Phil Larsen told GamesBeat. “That’s where we aim to drive the growth of our core business — but we have room for more.”

Larsen says that it doesn’t make sense for Halfbrick to bring on hundreds of people to make a new game. His team would rather use its reserves to help fund good ideas from smaller studios.

“That’s where we can work with other developers and publish their games under the Halfbrick brand,” he said.

To ensure the best for the games it publishes, Halfbrick will provide regular feedback to its partner studios. That includes analysis from its designers, artists, and programmers. The publisher will also help devise a global marketing campaign for its games.

While Halfbrick is getting into the third-party publishing space, that doesn’t mean it is looking for submissions from every studio on Earth.

“We will only publish as much as we can dedicate our time for, and pick the best projects for our culture,” said Larsen. “If that only means we publish two games per year, great. If it gets to the point where we are taking on too many games, we will either scale back or grow the publishing team to accommodate.”

Halfbrick isn’t the first mobile studio to move into publishing. Zynga, Pocket Gems, and Dragonplay have all made similar shifts.

The game market on mobile devices is volatile. At least, that is what we always hear. The common wisdom is that ideas that worked a year ago don’t work anymore, and the ideas that work now won’t work in six months. Apparently, someone forgot to tell that to the developers of Candy Crush Saga, Clash of Clans, and Puzzle & Dragons.

For the last several months, these three have continued to rake in massive revenues on both iOS and Android, according to market-tracking firm App Annie. In April, Candy Crush Saga was once again the most-downloaded title on each platform. It also generated the third-highest revenue for each app market.

“Over the past month, we’ve seen a few trends,” App Annie vice president of global communications Marcos Sanchez told GamesBeat. “Publishers who are employing a freemium strategy attached to in-app purchases are doing incredibly well, showing a growing sophistication in how apps are monetized. Games in the casual gaming category that have a social component have also fared well, largely because they are easy to consume, have the potential to be shared on a massive scale, and can acquire new users through major social networks such as Facebook. This trend has been reinforced by many of the top ranking games on App Annie’s Games Index, including King’s Candy Crush Saga and Supercell’s Hay Day and Clash of Clans.”

Clash of Clans isn’t available on Google Play, but it was the second-highest grossing game on the App Store.

All three of those titles have maintained or grown their dominate market positions since the last quarter of 2012. This reveals that the mobile gaming market heavily favors the most popular games. The rich keep getting richer while everyone else fights over the scraps.

On that front, several games popped up in the most-downloaded chart for the first time (or the first time in a while).

On Google Play, the racer Toy Truck Rally 3D from developer 3dinteger moved up 288 places to take the number four place on the top games by monthly downloads list. Platformer Manuganu had an even more impressive surge. Developer Alper Sankaya’s running game moved up over 1,000 spots and was the tenth most-downloaded game on Google Play in April.

On iOS, the big movers were Sonic Dash, Hardest Game Ever 2, and Fruit Ninja. Halfbrick Studios’ Fruit Ninja is experiencing a resurgence after falling to 431 on the most-dowloaded charts. Hardest Game Ever 2 moved up 302 places from March to April, and Sonic Dash jumped from 34 all the way to number two.

The rest of the top 10 most-downloaded titles on iOS were all new games outside of King’s Candy Crush Saga and Electronic Art’s Real Racing 3. That includes fighting game Injustice: Gods Among Us from Warner Bros. and Gameloft’s Iron Man 3 – The Official Game.

It’s interesting to note that of all these games that are acquiring the most players each month, only Candy Crush Saga and Injustice also made it on the highest-grossing chart’s top 10.

]]>0Candy Crush Saga and Puzzle & Dragons continue revenue dominance on mobileFish Out Of Water! is the next mobile addiction from Fruit Ninja’s developershttp://venturebeat.com/2013/03/26/fish-out-of-water-is-the-next-mobile-addiction-from-fruit-ninjas-developers/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/26/fish-out-of-water-is-the-next-mobile-addiction-from-fruit-ninjas-developers/#commentsTue, 26 Mar 2013 23:28:29 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=706062Changing weather conditions and pleasing some cantankerous crabs factor into your pursuit of the top spot on the leaderboard in this new game.
]]>Gaming execs:Join 180 select leaders from King, Glu, Rovio, Unity, Facebook, and more to plan your path to global domination in 2015. GamesBeat Summit is invite-only -- apply here. Ticket prices increase on April 3rd!

Luke Muscat got the idea for Fruit Ninja from watching late-night infomercials peddling cut-through-anything knives. Now the chief creative officer for developer Halfbrick is turning his love of surfing and everyone’s intrinsic desire to skip stones across water into another addicting mobile game, Fish Out Of Water!, due out within the next month or two for touchscreen devices.

The concept is a little Angry Birds-ish, only without the pig death and destruction at the end of the bird’s flight. You pick one of six fish, each with different physical characteristics, then fling it as far as possible to rack up not only total feet traveled but “skips” on the water’s surface. After three attempts, a group of six crab judges will score your session, Olympics-style. Some judges are more impressed with distance, while others want to see more bounces. Climbing the leaderboards will depend on your ability to please the crabs’ different personalities, which are all based on real-life people (developers on the Halfbrick team, Muscat’s girlfriend, and even a Simon Cowell type at Halfbrick who’s as hard to please in person as he is in the game).

Unlike in Halfbrick’s fan-favorite Jetpack Joyride, where the goal is to beat your personal distance record, in Fish Out Of Water!, players are simply competing against others on leaderboards that reset each day. (So the game doesn’t fall into the trap where exceeding your previous high score becomes more and more difficult the more you play.) The appeal here may seem like it could wear off fairly quickly, but ever-changing weather will play a huge part in mixing up play sessions for players around the world.

In any given hour, the weather may change for everyone at the same time. Wind, rain, snow, icy water … all may affect the flight paths of the different fish or create waves that can alter the skipping physics. During a stormy period, scores will likely drop for everyone playing at that moment. It will offer a short-term forecast for the next three hours or so, but Muscat hopes his “randomized, semi-intelligent” weather system will create a new type of activity within the Fish Out of Water! community where players seek out ideal conditions. “I do a lot of surfing and go to the beach to check the waves every day,” he told GamesBeat. “Of course, the day I don’t check, it’s perfect. Then I have to hear about it from my friends. So I really wanted to capture that dynamic with real-time weather in Fish Out Of Water! When it’s perfect with perfectly flat water, there should be tons of people playing to get those ideal conditions.”

This weather system may present some balancing problems on the leaderboards, however, since “ideal conditions” for someone living in Tallahassee, Fla. at 1 p.m., will be a deep-sleep 4 a.m. for a player in Sydney, Australia — probably not the ideal hour for a quick water-skipping session on the iPad. “We’re still working that out,” said Muscat.

See below or more screens and a gameplay video of Fish Out Of Water!

]]>0Fish Out Of Water! is the next mobile addiction from Fruit Ninja’s developers3 things fruit ninjas can learn from Del Monte in mobile marketinghttp://venturebeat.com/2013/01/15/3-things-fruit-ninjas-can-learn-from-del-monte-in-mobile-marketing/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/15/3-things-fruit-ninjas-can-learn-from-del-monte-in-mobile-marketing/#commentsTue, 15 Jan 2013 15:14:53 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=604640Guest:Rovio’s success with Angry Birds, the fastest growing game in history, is a great example of how app developers are applying some ‘traditional’ marketing lessons to drive more revenue.
]]>GUEST:

Just a few weeks ago, I wrote a piece on how a consumer-first company like Del Monte can learn from a mobile-first company like Fruit Ninja. Clearly, mobile developers have cracked the code on install-driven metrics around mobile marketing, but the reverse is still true – one needs to look no further than Rovio.

Rovio’s success with Angry Birds, the fastest growing game in history, is a great example of how app developers are applying some ‘traditional’ marketing lessons to drive more revenue. Since Angry Birds flew onto iPhones in 2009, Rovio has leveraged every aspect of the game’s iconic imagery via apparel, accessories, small amusement parks and a soon-to-be released animated series for the big screen. The studio even announced plans to delve into the credit card business with its launch of Angry Birds prepaid debit cards.

So Rovio, once on the brink of bankruptcy, learned from its past failures and acted like a consumer brand, not just a game studio, to reach new heights – with or without a slingshot.

Other game developers have picked up on the clue that in order to become a hit, it pays to think like the agencies on Madison Avenue. Here are three concrete actions to do just that:

1. Pursue a Cross-Screen Approach

Digital media ranges from TV to PC; it’s not limited to your smartphone or tablet. Since many users aren’t tied down to one device, it’s important to realize how they use each one in distinct ways. Someone itching for a cruise vacation may see an ad for a Royal Caribbean cruise package as a banner ad on his iPhone, but the chances of him finalizing the package purchase with this same device are slim.

Google recently released a series of case studies demonstrating the significant lift achieved by brands using a cross screen approach. Delta Airlines achieved a 105% increase in brand awareness and a 103% increase in brand favorability by extending their campaign from TV only to TV plus mobile. Similarly, Volvo observed 74% brand recall for users exposed to multiple screens vs. 50% for TV alone. Both examples point to the importance of targeting audiences and their behavior across all screens.

Successful brands understand this — and are pursuing a multi-screen approach. They use some screens for creating awareness of their product, and others for influencing the user to complete the product purchase or download. Since certain devices elicit certain behaviors, developers must start tailoring their message according to the screen that displays it.

Let’s reference our main mobile example, Fruit Ninja.

The game’s studio, Halfbrick, made marketing a top priority from the get-go, despite not having many resources to do so at the time. Clearly not made for TV, the Fruit Ninja’s web video advertisement, featuring two actors dressed as fruit being chased through a park by another actor dressed as a ninja, quickly went viral on the desktop web. Rather than viewing every screen as an acquisition opportunity, developers should learn how certain screens both complement and contrast each other in order to deliver an effective campaign.

2. Channel Your Inner Nielsen

Ten years ago, it would have been costly and difficult for a developer to target a highly educated, married female scientist who also happens to actively play its game. Traditional brands accomplished this goal using approximations on television audiences provided by Nielsen, the leading global information measurement company. They would further commission brand loyalty studies by firms such as Insight Express and Dynamic Logic to track customer lifetime value to a particular brand. Such studies are expensive and time-consuming, but are the lifeblood of brand management.

Developers, in contrast, have had to work through a tangled web of anonymous Android mobile web cookies, UDIDs, IMEI numbers, SHA-1 hashes and now Apple’s IFAs (“Identifier for Advertisers”), with little specificity about audience or intent.

Finally, there are tools available for developers to leapfrog brands in their use of audience data and insights to find the right users. This is particularly important to any developer who is looking to establish a long-term relationship with its users.

The most obvious examples are commerce (like eBay, Amazon, Groupon), travel (Expedia, Kayak, HotelTonight) and streamed media (Netflix, Hulu, Spotify), where a loyal user may generate $5-$20/month for several years. A high percentage of users, however, download the app, and then do not activate (ie. add a credit card and make a purchase), and in many cases, more than 80% of users neveractivate at all.

Groupon’s financial filings are instructive: from their Q3 2012 earnings report, only around 7.9% of users are active; they are earning $5.33/month from active subscribers vs. $0.38 from all subscribers. Assuming an 18-month lifetime value calculation, their value per average subscriber is $6.78, while their value per active subscriber is $95.94. Clearly, the ability to identify an active user is worth more than an order of magnitude greater to Groupon. Now, marketers are able to not only target audiences, but they can also monitor post install behavior (ie. did users activate or become frequent purchasers?) to inform acquisition strategies. These are tried-and-true methods that brands have employed, and are now in the hands of developers.

The top brands of today would be lost without data, add-ins, insights and analytics to measure brand performance. And that’s how most game developers are today: stuck using unsophisticated tools for targeting rather than taking advantage of the tools at their disposal to build loyal, lifelong relationships with their users. With post-install metrics, developers can build a performance strategy that goes far beyond install.

3.Extend Your Brand Beyond Screens and Into New Products

Apps similar to Fruit Ninja are also beginning to learn from global brands and following the Rovio model.

Fruit Ninja released its game for Kinect on Xbox this past summer (in addition to already being available on iPhone, Android, tablet and PC). The game was already familiar to more than 25 million people who play on mobile phones and tablets, but expansion to Xbox continued to strengthen the product’s recognition by honing in on a specific audience segment: highly active male players aged 12 – 17.

Halfbrick went a step further by reeling in an even younger demographic of players who may not even have access to mobile devices or play consoles yet: in June of this year, Halfbrick rolled out a partnership with several leading international consumer product companies to bring Fruit Ninja toys, apparel, shoes and more to the marketplace.

Similar to Del Monte’s variety of food offerings, Fruit Ninja’s new product partnerships are great steps forward in brand extension. Audiences buy brands, not operating systems and OEM specs. In order for games to become real brands, they must focus on expanding an audience profile, rather than just attracting more mobile consumers.

And there we have it. Cross-screen marketing, granular analytics and brand extensions are just three steps for taking a fun, mobile game and turning it into a household name. Any other ideas are welcome in the comments section of this story below. What else can games learn from brands?

Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan left her position as lead scientist at Google-acquired Admob in 2010 to create and found cross-screen mobile ad network Drawbridge. Named one of Business Insider’s “Most Powerful Women in Mobile Advertising (Meet the Most Powerful Women in Mobile Advertising: 2012),” she is an expert on advertiser-buyer connections in today’s mobile environment. Kamakshi attended Stanford University and received a PhD in Information Theory and Algorithms.

Fruit Ninja is the popular fruit-slicing game that took off on touchscreen smartphones such as the iPhone. Now you can play it on a giant touchscreen TV.

I passed by the booth of TCL today at the Consumer Electronics Show. I saw a game of Angry Birds being played across three connected displays. And I also saw this woman playing Fruit Ninja on an UltraSurface TV. You control Fruit Ninja with slicing gestures. In contrast to gesture-based game systems like the Wii or Microsoft’s Kinect for the Xbox 360, you directly put your hands on the glass in this game.

It sure looks fun, but it seems like the market for apps that do this is limited to gesture games and maybe art applications. Otherwise, I’d rather be 10 feet away from my TV, rather than right up close to it.

Check out the video here.

]]>0Will you buy this TCL TV for a new way to play Fruit Ninja?Top gaming technologies of 2012http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/23/gaming-technologies-of-2012/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/23/gaming-technologies-of-2012/#commentsSun, 23 Dec 2012 15:00:11 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=590497This year saw the continued evolution of three consumer technologies -- autostereoscopy, touch sensing, and motion sense – with direct application in the gaming world.
]]>Gaming execs:Join 180 select leaders from King, Glu, Rovio, Unity, Facebook, and more to plan your path to global domination in 2015. GamesBeat Summit is invite-only -- apply here. Ticket prices increase on April 3rd!

2012 saw the continued evolution of three consumer technologies — autostereoscopy, touch-sensing, and motion sense – with direct application in the gaming world.

As an analyst in the tech industry (I do this gaming stuff for fun and occasional profit), I’ve witnessed these burgeoning advancements spread from the fevered dreams of OEM engineers to vertical-market trade shows, the Consumer Electronics Show, and finally E3 and the games industry.

None of these technologies debuted in 2012, but they’ve each matured and become an indispensable part of gaming. For perspective, here’s a link to last year’s article.

Seeing in three dimensions without goofy eye wear

For those who don’t know, “autostereoscopy” is an informal term in the tech industry for glasses-free 3D – “stereoscopy” refers to the process by which combining two offset images gives the illusion of depth (three dimensions), and “auto” denotes the glasses-free component.

Autostereoscopy uses a parallax barrier to create 3D images without the need for special glasses. This differs from an active shutter system (like Nvidia 3D Vision), which, through special driver software and glasses that present alternating left- and right-eye images, presents the illusion of depth.

Most consumers are familiar with polarized 3D systems, by far the oldest and most mature of these technologies. These are the sort most often found in theaters and theme parks.

Of the three techniques, autostereoscopy shows the most promise, but the tech is inherently limiting, as the 3DS amply demonstrates. The biggest downside to glasses-free 3D is its highly restrictive viewing angles. In my own experience, it ranges anywhere from 45 degrees to 60 degrees. Move too far in any direction and it breaks the illusion. In that way, the 3DS – and its parent technology – are not dissimilar to a hologram.

When the 3D revival began in recent years, the consumer electronics industry threw all their weight behind this oft-maligned gimmick. CES became saturated with 3D TVs, 3D movies, 3D projectors, 3D laptops, 3D gaming, and more than enough 3D to turn off consumers — which it did. Whereas the leap from cathode ray tube (CRT) to flat-screen was monumental, 3D wasn’t nearly enough to convince most people to abandon their “obsolete” LED TVs. Most consumers apparently saw it as a stop-gap solution.

OEMs lay the groundwork for autostereoscopy

I saw the foundation of the 3DS’s glasses-free 3D tech at optoelectronics events (essentially, anything having to do with displays and lighting), and a large manufacturer – rhymes with “Carp” – demoed a small form-factor display long before it did (or didn’t … shhhh) become part of a certain Nintendo handheld.

And yet, Nintendo’s autostereoscopic handheld system – which may or may not have utilized display technology from Japanese manufacturer, Sharp – faced an uphill battle due to inherent limitations with the tech, itself.

The 3DS was hobbled from the start – health reports loudly trumpeted claims that 3D was unhealthy for children, while many viewers (myself includes) get headaches and/or nausea from observing stereoscopy for too long. And up to 12 percent of the population suffers from “stereoblindness,” which prevents the individual from seeing 3D images.

But the 3DS’ biggest handicap was its restrictive viewing angles, given that its claim-to-fame was its autostereoscopy technology. On July 28, Nintendo partially mitigated this problem with the release of the 3DS XL, which increased the screen size by more than 90 percent — (top: 4.88 in [124 mm], bottom: 4.18 in [106 mm]). But was it too little, too late?

GamesBeat writer Jasmine Maleficent Rea noted that “The 3DS XL is what the 3DS should have started as.”

But she also addressed the system’s improved capabilities: “A wider viewing area enhances the 3D effect, making some games that were too blurry in 3D a joy to play. For those of us with horrible vision, larger screens are a must, and because of this advancement, the 3DS XL is a great step toward people accepting a ‘gimmicky’ feature as a viable gameplay tool.”

Most consumers still do see 3D as a gimmick, and autostereoscopy is but a fancier gimmick. But for stereoscopy to ever become part of mainstream entertainment, it must shed the clunky glasses and develop into a mature, glasses-free technology.

Pinching, swiping, and styli

Capacitive touch – which underpins your iPhones, Samsung Galaxys, Droids, and countless smartphones – has become more prominent as the platforms supporting it have eked out a bigger piece of the pie. And resistive touch – the passive cousin of capacitive – has done even better for itself, featuring prominently in the Wii U gamepad (not to mention countless commercial applications like ATMs and credit card payment machines).

Resistive touch sensing – which registers pressure via fingers, styli, and other objects – is hardly a new technology. Because of its versatility compared to competing systems (like capacitive touch), resistive touch is popular in commercial applications like ATMs.

Nintendo utilized this relatively primitive touchscreen technology for its DS and 3DS systems, presumably to save a buck and to enable the use of styli.

Verizon Wireless announced today that it’s introducing GameTanium, an app subscription service that launched last year, to its Android-powered smartphones and tablets. For $5.99 a month, Verizon customers gain unlimited access to over 100 smartphone games (50 on tablets), including megahits Plants vs. Zombies and Fruit Ninja.

GameTanium is compatible with over 30 phones and two tablets. Exent, creator of the service, also offers “Editor’s Picks” app recommendations to help customers choose which games to play. GameTanium is aimed at attacking the problem of mobile game discovery. With hundreds of thousands of apps available, it’s easy for great games to get lost in overcrowded app stores, so Exent offers a curated service where it selects the best games it can find from a variety of third-party developers.

Exent currently provides thousands of PC games on demand on the web. Its partners include Mediacom, and T-Mobile. The company says it serves games to millions of players monthly.

]]>1Verizon Wireless adds GameTanium app subscription serviceGamesBeat weekly rounduphttp://venturebeat.com/2012/06/16/gamesbeat-weekly-roundup-12/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/16/gamesbeat-weekly-roundup-12/#commentsSat, 16 Jun 2012 19:10:15 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=474971If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.
]]>Gaming execs:Join 180 select leaders from King, Glu, Rovio, Unity, Facebook, and more to plan your path to global domination in 2015. GamesBeat Summit is invite-only -- apply here. Ticket prices increase on April 3rd!

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Apple brought the iOS GameCenter to Mac, Silicon Knights confirmed a small number of layoffs, and the Diablo III real-money auction house went live. You can also find a roundup of GamesBeat’s complete coverage for this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the game industry’s largest trade show.

]]>0GamesBeat weekly roundupFruit Ninja follows Angry Birds’ flight plan with licensed productshttp://venturebeat.com/2012/06/14/fruit-ninja-products-on-the-way/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/14/fruit-ninja-products-on-the-way/#commentsThu, 14 Jun 2012 23:43:11 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=474113The company behind the popular mobile game Fruit Ninja wants to take the Angry Birds phenomenon head-on as it launches its own line of tie-in toys and accessories.
]]>Gaming execs:Join 180 select leaders from King, Glu, Rovio, Unity, Facebook, and more to plan your path to global domination in 2015. GamesBeat Summit is invite-only -- apply here. Ticket prices increase on April 3rd!

Halfbrick, the developer behind the games Fruit Ninja and Jet Pack Joyride, wants to get in on the sweet marking success its competitor Rovio enjoys with Angry Birds tie-in products. With the help of HAP consulting, a brand-licensing firm, Halfbrick hopes to launch its own line of Fruit Ninja accessories.

“Since Fruit Ninja is already an international phenomenon, we thought it was crucial to expand the brand’s reach and engage our fruit-slicing fanatics around the world,” Halfbrick CEO Shainiel Deo said in a statement. “We have handpicked some of the best consumer product companies in the international marketplace and look forward to unveiling our line-up to old and new fans.”

Fruit Ninja is available on iOS, Windows Phone, and Android devices, as well as Xbox Live Arcade. According to Apple’s top 25 most-downloaded paid apps, Fruit Ninja ranks second, just behind Angry Birds. Halfbrick also claims the game has had over 300 million downloads across all mobile app stores. With that information in mind, it seems that Fruit Ninja has a considerable installed base, one that might be receptive to tie-in products like what Rovio sells.

Angry Birds is everywhere. Retailers the world over carry a variety of Angry Birds toys, clothes, candies, and accessories. You can even buy bandages with the game’s signature pigs and birds on them. Halfbrick plans to release similar products with the help of international manufacturers in both Europe and Asia. In the coming months, you’ll likely see Fruit Ninja-branded toys, augmented reality apparel (whatever that means), mouse pads, USB desk lamps, wallets, shoes, and cell phone charms.

European partners:

Play by Play Toys & Novelties

Poetic Gem

Asian Partners:

Shenzhen Vicky Technology & Trade Co.

Letao

Nokia

It’s interesting that Halfbrick hasn’t announced any partnerships with candy manufacturers. Angry Birds lends itself more to toys than gummies, but you can buy boxes of gross, bird-shaped sweets if you want to. Fruit Ninja could turn into an excellent candy, especially if the end product was more like General Mills Gushers snack. Since the game is all about slicing juicy fruit, it makes sense that each gummy would burst in your mouth like mercilessly slaughtered oranges.

Facebook’s Timeline is here to stay. And although not everyone loves this new layout, we can agree that the option to display a big image at the top of your profile is pretty cool — especially if it lets you show off your favorite video games.

We’re releasing seven days’ worth of artwork, each with a different theme, that you can use to decorate your Facebook profile:

Today’s batch of covers features 10 addicting games from mobile devices and social networks. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge the pictures, then right-click (or ctrl-click for Macs) them and hit “save image as” to save to your computer.

“I’m about the furthest you can get from a ‘normal’ game-maker’s path. I used to study molecular biology and computer science after getting a PhD in Bioinformatics.”

That earned a double take. In a small meeting room tucked away within Zynga’s mammoth corporate headquarters, I’m listening to Game Doctors co-founder Matthias Höchsmann debuting Zombie Swipeout, a “spiritual successor” to last year’s castle-defense title ZombieSmash for the iPhone. His origin story, like most indie-cum-successful-developers’, stands out as an intriguing journey.

Höchsmann isn’t researching microorganisms with brain-busting names anymore, but his newest venture on the gaming front brings just as much brain-busting in a different form. Swipeout’s objective marries simplicity with replayability: Slice and chop up as many tumbling and falling zombies across the screen as possible within 75 seconds using swipe gestures. Chaining kills nets combo multipliers, a higher score, and an ever-increasing fresco of blood graffiti in the background.

Ostensibly, ZombieSmash hero Joey occasionally succumbs to his urges of hurling himself airborne in the midst of the undead-blending shenanigans. Thankfully, his green don’t-kill-me aura and expression of mortified horror signifies his appearances. If you still manage to cut into Joey’s fun — as I did multiple times — you’ll need to revive the plummeting protagonist with a limited-use medpack or send him six feet under which sends you to a game over.

I enjoyed the challenge of tracing hasty, elaborate swipes around Joey to nab zombies and coins, but his knack for appearing just as I’m tying off a 6-chain combo convinces me he’ll never make it in badly choreographed Broadway productions. “There’s just one rule: Don’t hit the good guy,” Höchsmann advises.

Yep, I said coins. They’ll fund purchases of increasingly grandiose melee weaponry and useful power-ups. With enough cash, players unlock machetes, samurai swords, spiked clubs, and even a twilight blade, an infusion of neon and steel seemingly lifted from some cyberpunk warrior’s armory. Grenades, slow-motion hourglasses, and liquid nitrogen tanks are also purchaseable and provide an edge during games.

The obvious mechanical similarities between Swipeout and Halfbrick Studio’s Fruit Ninja exist in plain sight, but Höchsmann believes Zynga’s powerful social presence adds “an additional layer of complexity” to the game. Weekly tournaments with friends (invited via Facebook or an in-game code) keeps the competition flowing with trophies, score comparisons, and leaderboards. Racking up victories powers a leveling system, where the evergreen drive for higher scores continues the adventure.

Ultimately, Zombie Swipeout presents an entertaining dance with the undead in a small, mobile package. The game is currently only available in Canada for the iPhone and iPod Touch systems, but Zynga plans a worldwide release soon.

Australia’s Halfbrick Studios, maker of the popular Fruit Ninja mobile game, has acquired Onan Games so that it can publish titles across platforms more quickly.

The Brisbane, Australia-based Halfbrick has had some huge hits in recent years with Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride. So it is buying Valencia, Spain-based Onan Games for an undisclosed price to get access to its Mandreel technology. That’s one way to solve a problem that many game makers have: how to quickly republish a hit game across many platforms.

Mandreel enables a developer to take a single C++ code base for a game and then republish it across iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch), Android, Flash, and HTML5.

Halfbrick CEO Shainiel Deo said, “Onan has created something that is incredibly powerful in such a fast-paced industry. It’s our goal to maximize reach and bring our games to new fans, and we welcome Onan into the Halfbrick family knowing that they will help us achieve exactly that.”

Mandreel is currently being used to port games to web sites via Flash and HTML5. The technology will be used to improve distribution for Halfbrick titles such as Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride.

“We want to see our technology used by the best and most creative developers, and Halfbrick is undoubtedly one of the top studios in the world,” said Miguel Pastor, Onan Games CEO. “We can’t wait to see what awesome new ideas and projects will arise in the coming months.”

Halfbrick plans to license Mandreel to customers in the near future as well. Halfbrick was founded in 2001 while Onan Games was founded in 2011.

Apple’s popular iOS App Store has now topped 25 billion downloads, a sign that mobile device owners are still hungry for well-built native applications.

On Apple’s site, the company has highlighted the achievement with a page that says: “A billion thanks. 25 times over.” The company had been promoting a contest where the person who broke the new milestone would win a $10,000 iTunes gift card. The milestone was broken some time in the past few days. Apple held a similar contest in Jan. 2011 when the company hit 10 billion App Store downloads.

While there have been persistent arguments about how well native mobile applications would fare against surging HTML5 development, at least when it comes to Apple, consumers are still plainly in love with native apps. Social networking apps like Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter are especially popular for iOS, as well as casual games like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Fruit Ninja, and Where’s My Water?.

VentureBeat contributor and CBS Interactive CTO Peter Yared recently summed up the current state of the conflict between native and HTML5 well, saying: “While HTML5 has come a long way, it is still not up to par with the native app experience. Some publishers, such as the Financial Times and Playboy, have come close to native app functionality by investing heavily in HTML5 in order to bypass Apple’s 30 percent app store subscription fee. However, there are no turnkey JavaScript libraries that provide functionality such as efficient swiping and offline reading.”

If you made plans for your weekend, you might want to kiss them goodbye. Apple yesterday released its iTunes Rewind 2011 list, with the 40 top iPhone and iPad apps of the year. The iTunes store now has more than 500,000 apps in it, but this year’s top apps list shows that fun is the dominant theme. Games and social networking tools dominated, and photo sharing tool Instagram was chosen as the No. 1 app of the year.

People can’t get enough of Instagram. Since launching in October of 2010, the app has acquired over 13 million users. On the iTunes Store, the app has been rated by more than 207,000 people who give it 3.75 stars out of four.

Apple’s top apps list still has many other fun services and games to choose from. Some you know and love, others might be new. Don’t be surprised if your Saturday and Sunday disappear as you check out a few of the games you might have missed out on earlier in the year. It definitely happened to me over Thanksgiving weekend when I downloaded Tiny Wings for the iPhone. And now the list, without further ado:

Top Paid iPhone Apps

The top 10 paid iPhone apps were all games, with the exception of Camera+, a photo app with tons of cool filters. Angry Birds claimed the top spot, and it’s no surprise. 2o11 was the year Angry birds went from a niche meme to a full on cultural phenomenon. Making an unlikely appearance on the Top 10 list is Doodle Jump, a basic but “insanely addictive” platformer that first appeared on the iPhone nearly two years ago.

Top Free iPhone Apps:

The top free apps were dominated by games and social networking services. Facebook took the top slot, and it has has been the most popular iOS app for some time by a comfortable margin. More than 350 million people access Facebook through a mobile device, and it is the most popular iPhone app of all time. Pandora is another heavy favorite for iPhone users, and Twitter, which was integrated into iOS 5, is an app that has become part of the mobile phone experience. No real surprises here.

Top Paid iPad Apps:

The top iPad apps showed a little more bias towards productivity and work, with Apple’s publishing tool Pages, and presentation designer Keynote making their way to the top 10. Overall, iPad owners still love their games. Cut The Rope HD and Fruit Ninja were still in the running, capturing people’s imagination on both the iPad and the iPhone.

The free iPad apps category shows the most diversity, with a mixture of games, such as Angry Birds Rio, a calculator app, and even the app designed for the Weather Channel. Pandora, Kindle and Netflix are all on the list, showing that people love their iOS devices for play and media, even when they can help get a lot of work done.

]]>0Instagram is Apple’s No. 1 app of 2011 in a year heavy on fun and sharingHalfbrick’s Monster Dash is a case study in mobile cross promotionhttp://venturebeat.com/2011/04/14/halfbricks-monster-dash-is-a-case-study-in-mobile-cross-promotion/
http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/14/halfbricks-monster-dash-is-a-case-study-in-mobile-cross-promotion/#commentsThu, 14 Apr 2011 13:00:25 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=254314Gaming execs: Join 180 select leaders from King, Glu, Rovio, Unity, Facebook, and more to plan your path to global domination in 2015. GamesBeat Summit is invite-only -- apply here. Ticket prices increase on April 3rd! Mobile game maker Halfbrick made out like a bandit with its Fruit Ninja mobile game, selling its game to 23 million players. Now its latest […]
]]>Gaming execs:Join 180 select leaders from King, Glu, Rovio, Unity, Facebook, and more to plan your path to global domination in 2015. GamesBeat Summit is invite-only -- apply here. Ticket prices increase on April 3rd!

Mobile game maker Halfbrick made out like a bandit with its Fruit Ninja mobile game, selling its game to 23 million players. Now its latest game, Monster Dash, is starting to take off as well, thanks to Halfbrick’s alliance with the cross-promotion efforts of OpenFeint.

Today, Monster Dash is rising in downloads thanks to OpenFeint’s newest feature, dubbed “developer announcements.” The announcement lets a developer promote one game to a user who is playing another game from the same developer.

Sometimes, mobile developers get lucky with a game that goes straight to the top of the charts. But other games can use all the help in the world to get noticed, and that’s what OpenFeint provides for them. By adding social cross-promotion and virality to mobile games, OpenFeint is starting to show it can be a kingmaker among mobile developers. Getting games discovered on mobile app stores is still exceedingly difficult, but as Halfbrick’s case study shows, it’s getting easier.

OpenFeint has created a social platform that allows mobile game players to engage in chat, challenge friends to multiplayer matches, and see where they rank on leaderboards.

Developers use the OpenFeint platform so that they don’t have to worry about anything except building a fun game. OpenFeint has additional tools and marketing programs to help the developers reach bigger audiences. OpenFeint can cross-promote games that are similar to the one being played, and it can help developers adapt an iPhone game to run on Android. The end result is more visibility for a game.

With Halfbrick’s Monster Dash, OpenFeint promoted the game so that users would see it while playing Fruit Ninja. If they tapped on the little promo, they could immediately install the game and play it. After OpenFeint did the cross promotion, Monster Dash’s downloads spiked 123 percent in two days, said Phil Larsen, marketing director of Brisbane, Australia-based Halfbrick. The game also jumped from No. 143 on the Apple App Store to No. 4 in free apps. In paid apps, the game moved from No. 267 to No. 84.

OpenFeint has other ways for developers to get more players through promotions, such as Free Game of the Day and Fire Sale. The first offers a paid game as a free app for one day, while the Fire Sale uses a group-buying model to drive down the prices of premium games.

Halfbrick was founded in 2001. OpenFeint has more than 5,000 games with more than 75 million registered users.